Clocky will Open Your Eyes!

Clocky is a robot alarm clock for people who have trouble getting out of bed. If you hit the snooze button, Clocky rolls off your nightstand, falls on the floor and runs around the room searching for a place to hide. Minutes later, Clocky calls out and you have to find the robot to make it go back to sleep, and by that time you are up. These pictures show inventor Gauri Nanda holding the original Clocky prototype and a commercial version that will be available early in 2006. Gauri notes: “As a graduate student in MIT’s Media Lab, I invented Clocky because I felt it was a bit strange that even though alarm clocks don’t work very well in awaking people, they haven’t evolved much. People email me all the time telling me their funny can’t-get-outof- bed stories. Clocky is a simple idea, but it is one that has really resonated with many people. It was great to be recognized by the IgNobels, who celebrate the light and humorous side of science and technology.”

Gauri was awarded an IgNobel Award in 2005 in Economics for her invention, see www.improbable.com/ig/ig-top.html. You can sign up at www.clocky.net to enter in a Clocky giveaway by simply adding your email address to the Clocky mailing list.